Nancy Young is an undergraduate student in the School of Art’s Printmaking Program here at Cal State Long Beach. Nancy was very excited to tell us that she recently turned her final project in and shared there are various types of printmaking of which fascinate her very much. Nancy doesn’t wish to pursue art as a career but instead would like to make a living as a programmer Nancy does enjoy printmaking, but loves her job involving database work. When she is not working on her art, Nancy likes to listen to music and spend time with her dogs. Nancy actually was a student at Cal State Long Beach in 1984. She did experience substance abuse and had bipolar issues but has since put those cloudy days behind her and has learned to control her emotions. She explained how new projects dig up new knowledge as to how it was back then. Nancy went to various workshops in Santa Ana, Irvine, and San Pedro. Nancy wishes for her art exhibit to be a bookmark or big checkmark for her life and to show other people how things were before or her.

Nancy’s artwork looks simplistic at first glance but, once you take a closer look, you will observe the attention to detail to puts into her work. Nancy decided not to make her art exhibition as brightly colored as previous ones but instead, used washed out colors or variants of great and blue. Her carvings into the linoleum plates created smooth textures into her work.

Nancy expressed how she chose to title her exhibition, “As The Crow Flies,” since each piece of art references a place she has traveled. Nancy also wants to expose her own inspiration through her pictures and photography so avoided all online possibilities to create her own work. The type of printmaking she does is not as toxic as other types of printmaking and each piece of art is placed in the gallery based on the distance from Cal State Long Beach. She was highly influenced by her personal life and explored ideas from various topics, such as her past issues with substance abuse and the death of her husband. This exhibition symbolized Nancy’s journey of finally getting to the point of being able to finish school and was a pleasant bookmark in her life.

I appreciated the fact that she was willing to share so much personal information about herself. It was incredibly inspiring how even though Nancy has experienced so many tragic events, she was able to overcome these tragedies to ultimately share her story to others through her artwork in “As The Crow Flies.” I resonated with Nancy very much, due to her personal struggles. Many times it can be very difficult to continue to follow through with the tasks you are passionate about.